


king of the avalanche

by neville



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Incredible Hulk (2008)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bruce Banner Feels, Bruce Banner Needs a Hug, Clint Barton Needs a Hug, Depression, Everyone Needs A Hug, Ghosts, Grief/Mourning, Haunting, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Mental Instability, Recovery, References to Depression, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Is a Good Bro, Tony is a nice guy, Trauma, bruce & clint have both gone through Massive Tragedy and are basically just trying to cope, bruce and clint team up to take care of a baby. woo!, but together, it's a sort of happy ending. about as happy as ur gonna fucking get with a plot like this, we stan a supportive team up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-15
Updated: 2019-08-15
Packaged: 2020-09-01 17:30:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20261845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neville/pseuds/neville
Summary: Both suffering from seemingly insurmountable grief, Bruce and Clint recover together at Clint's farmstead, where, to Bruce's abject horror, he begins to see ghosts.prompt #2:bruce banner/clint barton





	king of the avalanche

**Author's Note:**

> so apparently i'm on that angst train right now. this is a Big Sad one, and i know i was dealing with big topics so i hope this is okay, but after rewatching hereditary i decided i wanted to write a heavily emotionally-charged ghosts fic ! i know this fic is a big sad but honestly sometimes it feels very refreshing to explore the depths of sadness and it helps me get out some of my feelings, too
> 
> so, i really hope u guys enjoy this! and thank u for reading & being willing to click on this Interesting Premise
> 
> the title is inspired by the title of the film "prince avalanche". the title for that also makes no sense, but i feel like for this fic the avalanche may be metaphorical

Clint would be dead if it weren’t for the baby. 

This is what he tells Bruce Banner after the support group. He doesn’t speak at the support group, hasn’t done so in the nine weeks he’s been there, and neither has Bruce. They don’t know anything about each other’s traumas, or grief, just that it exists, and then when they’re standing together in line for coffee, Clint says “I would’ve killed myself if I didn’t have Nathaniel”, and it’s the most Bruce has learned about him at once. 

Bruce had asked him out, tentatively, had blocked his way from the door at the end of the session and blurted out, “do you think you would - want to come for coffee right now?”, and Clint had nodded, and now they’re here in line at a Starbucks treading carefully around saying anything too much. 

“His name is Nathaniel?” Bruce asks, looking down at the stroller. To him, Nathaniel barely looks shy of an alien: big eyes, bald head, small grabby hands. Despite it all, Bruce has gotten attached. He melts when Nathaniel smiles at him. If there’s a light in the darkness, he supposes, it really is a baby: a baby isn’t going to push themselves away, or judge, and a baby doesn’t necessarily understand the hardship going on around them. A baby just needs a parent. “That’s cute.” 

“Mhm. He was meant to be Natasha, but let his Auntie Nat down.” 

They sit in the corner by the window so that Nathaniel can watch people go by: Clint gets him a cup of milk, and helps him drink it, and otherwise they all sit in silence. Bruce doesn’t know what to say anymore, to anyone. There’s a massive pit of sadness in his stomach and it seems to be all that he can focus on, even after all this time: it’s absorbing his will to do anything and even his love for science. He can’t get that excited anymore, not about anything, and he’s still on leave from lecturing. He’s meant to go back soon. He doesn’t know if he can. 

He forgets to drink his coffee, and it goes cold. 

“You want to come home with us?” Clint asks. Bruce starts, roused from his thoughts. 

“Really?” he asks dumbly. Clint shrugs. 

“Sure.” 

As it turns out, Clint lives on a farmstead a half-hour drive out of town; it doesn’t look like much farming has gone on there for a while, and the grass is overgrown, but somehow a flock of chickens is still surviving, clucking at each other and chasing each other round the front of the house. Clint steadily ignores them all, even the ones who nip at Bruce’s ankles, and pushes Nathaniel into the house before relieving him from the stroller. He fell asleep in the car, and Clint disappears somewhere with him, presumably to set him down for a nap. 

Bruce steps into the house and shuts the door behind him, taking his shoes off and leaving them in the hallway. The farmstead is clearly meant for a family, but aside from Clint’s careful footsteps from the floor above, there doesn’t seem to be anybody here. There are photographs of Clint and who Bruce assumes is his wife, and two children that are older than Nathaniel; and he doesn’t know if they’re gone or if they’re  _ gone _ , but either way the house feels like a void. 

“You want another coffee?” Clint asks. 

“I don’t know if I’ll finish this one either,” Bruce says. 

“Doesn’t matter. If you don’t, I will.” 

“Alright, then, sure.” 

Clint sets about making a pot of coffee, and to stop himself from snooping, Bruce follows him into the kitchen. There are children’s drawings pinned to the refrigerator, and height markings against the wall; the calendar is still a few months behind, so Bruce changes it on Clint’s behalf. There’s also a mass of dishes that haven’t been done, to the point that there are too many to dry all at once, and he holds in a sigh. 

“Clint,” he says. 

“Yeah?” 

“I’m going to do your dishes.” 

“You don’t have to.” 

“I’m going to.” 

There’s a pause; Clint doesn’t turn round, and Bruce suspects he probably couldn’t if he wanted to, and in a quiet voice he says “thanks, Bruce”. 

The coffee has cooled enough to drink by the time Bruce has finished the first half of the dishes; he dries his hands on an enthusiastically-patterned pink towel, and takes a seat at the kitchen’s dining table. Clint leans against the countertop, arms folded. Half of one of his arms is taken up by an in-progress tattoo sleeve; Bruce wonders what, if anything, it means. He decides not to ask. It’s probably rude.

“This is a stupid question,” Bruce says, kneading at the fabric of his trousers, “but are you doing okay?” Clint raises his eyebrows. “I mean, I can come over and help you with the house. I don’t really do much these days.” 

“If you want.” Clint pauses. “I’d… I’d really appreciate that, actually, you know, it’s hard. This whole thing.” He sighs, and runs a hand through a hair: he has some sort of a mohawk, definitely an unusual style choice for a single dad, but it’s soft and just fluffs under his touch. “I can’t really keep up with things like the housework. I make sure that Nate is okay, and that’s all I have the energy for.” 

“I get that,” Bruce says. “It’s okay. That you’re struggling, I mean. It’s - normal. I just wanna help.” He swallows. “You know, my house is a mess, too, but it feels easier to help with yours than it is to deal with mine. I don’t know if that’s stupid.”

“I don’t think anything’s stupid anymore.” Clint takes a sip of his coffee. “Stay for dinner. Please.” 

“Sure,” says Bruce. He doesn’t have anything better to do. He really doesn’t. And - well, he hasn’t spoken to anybody in a long time except for his friend Tony, who’s too busy to do anything more than occasionally stop by and take Bruce out somewhere and stop him from doing anything dangerous. Not to others, but himself. 

Mostly, Tony throws out food and milk that’s past its expiry date, and forces Bruce out to Walmart. Usually they get takeout afterwards. Tony doesn’t come round often enough. After he leaves, it feels like there’s a hole in the house, and Bruce curls up on the couch and watches episodes of  _ House _ until he falls asleep. He wakes up the next day in his crumpled clothes and eats the toast he finally has enough bread for, and does little else besides. 

“You mind if I put on some music?” 

Bruce’s smile comes naturally, with a little fluster. “Are you trying to flirt with me?” he teases. Clint shrugs. 

“If you want me to,” he says with a rare grin of his own. 

Clint chooses to play Nina Simone; Bruce recognises the song as  _ Baltimore _ , a song he remembers from his own college days. Strange, really, that it’s  _ this _ song they have in common: a Randy Newman cover that used to play all the time in the bar by Bruce’s apartment in second year, a song that he had circled his bottle of cider on the table to, a song that Clint is now lightly swaying to, still holding his cup of coffee. He feels the tightness in his chest rise to a lump in his throat at the memory of university: everything had been easy, then, cloudless skies stretched above campus and the sounds of his friends’ laughter. 

Most of them hadn’t made it. 

Their screams mingle with the sound of their laughter, in his mind. 

He can hear the sound of the bass, in real life, through Clint’s speakers: he takes a sharp breath, and sets down his coffee, and feels his soul lift through his body. He doesn’t know how else to describe it: his mind just  _ leaves _ reality, and the past hits him all at once, flooding him until he doesn’t know how to cope anymore. He can feel his arms prickle with sweat, somewhere far away. He can feel the heat of the explosion, the burns searing his skin, the destruction, the  _ smell _ of the laboratory and the inevitable feeling that he was going to die right there on the floor. 

“Bruce,” Clint says. He sounds like he’s a thousand miles away, and then his hand is on Bruce’s arm and he’s back in the room. “Hey. Are you okay?” 

“No,” Bruce says softly. “No. I-” 

“You want some water?” 

“Yeah, please.” Bruce’s voice cracks; Clint nods, pressing the glass into his hand and watching as Bruce takes a shaky gulp. “I’m sorry. Sometimes I just…” 

“Hey. You don’t have to say sorry.” Clint rests his hand on Bruce’s shoulder, squeezing it lightly; usually Bruce is a little averse to people touching him, but Clint is feeling less like a stranger and more like a friend already. Sure, Bruce doesn’t know his story or his life: but he knows that Clint is hurting, and that Clint is being the best dad he can be, and that Clint is reaching out to Bruce in a way that nobody has before. Clint’s touch is nice, actually. Comforting. “Grief makes all kinds of shit happen.”

“This song just brought me back.”

“Yeah? You like Nina Simone?” 

“Sure. I used to listen to her all the time in college.” 

“Huh. You don’t strike me as a Nina Simone guy.” Clint gives Bruce a moment, another few sips of water, and then offers his hand out. “Might I ask for your hand in a dance, young gentleman?” 

“See, now you’re  _ definitely _ flirting with me,” Bruce says with a smile; he’s still shaking when he lets Clint lift him from the chair, but Clint’s hands are strong and steady where they hold him and sway him. Bruce doesn’t have rhythm, but Clint does, and he follows Clint’s lead, ignoring the tremor in his arms as he lets himself disappear into the music and into the feeling of security. He isn’t going to think about the accident, or about college, or about anything else. Whether Clint is flirting with him or not, it’s been a long time since he was  _ this _ close to anybody. 

Physically, and a little bit mentally, because as much as Tony tries he will  _ never _ understand.

“What’d you do at college?” Clint asks, hand warm in the crook of Bruce’s waist. 

“A lot,” Bruce says with a little laugh. “Started with physics. Then nuclear physics, biochemistry, mechanical engineering, health physics, medicine… They couldn’t keep me away.” 

“Wow. Didn’t know I had a genius in my house.” 

“I wouldn’t go that far.” 

“ _ I _ would.” 

They dance for a while like that, entangled in each other’s limbs and just  _ talking _ until Bruce breaks away to take a few more swigs of water. He’s not shaking anymore, which is definitely a start, and when Clint asks him how he’s feeling, he nods and says, “yeah, I’m good”. Clint grins. 

“Glad I could help,” he says. “I’m gonna go to the bathroom. Please don’t burn my house down in the next two minutes.” 

“I’ll try.” 

“It’s  _ very _ flammable, just so you know.” 

“I was a very responsible scientist.” Bruce tries not to think about the fact that the accident was probably his fault, that he’s not the responsible scientist that he wants to be, that there are people dead on account of his oversight, that he could set this house on fire while Clint is away and burn down everything left that’s precious to him and be the only person left alive when the wreckage is over, in a hospital bed where everybody wanted to speak to him to blame him to know what happened- 

“Bruce,” Clint says. “Stop thinking.” 

“I’m sorry.” 

“Don’t be. But stop thinking.” 

Clint disappears down his hallway to the bathroom, leaving Bruce on his own with his cup of coffee and glass of water. He decides that he should probably stop caffeinating today, and as he leans over to pick up the water, hears a crackle of static over the baby monitor. He looks over, and just as he thinks that it was maybe some radio static, a hissing voice over the monitor growls “ _ CLINT _ ”. 

Bruce feels his blood run cold with fright. 

Baby monitors pick up radio interference - he’s heard about it before, sure, but he’s never actually  _ heard _ it, and for the radio interference to sound like Clint’s name… He’ll admit it: for all his scientific knowledge and rationale, he’s scared. 

Nathaniel begins to cry. 

Bruce gives Clint a moment, then two, then three; and when he still hasn’t emerged from the bathroom, Bruce tentatively heads for the stairs, following the sound of the noise. Nathaniel’s room is at the end of the first floor corridor, his name tacked on the door in animal-themed letters, and the door is slightly ajar so Bruce just needs to push it open. He’s not good with children and never has been, but the least he can do is bring Nathaniel downstairs.

He pushes the door open carefully with his elbow, and starts as he realises that there’s a figure across the room, hovering over Nathaniel’s crib. 

“Hello?” he demands, and just as the figure looks up, it vanishes. 

Jesus Christ, did Clint slip something in Bruce’s coffee? 

He bustles across the room, carefully lifting Nathaniel into his arms and hurrying him down the stairs. Trick of his mind or not, the figure  _ definitely _ creeped Bruce out and he’s not sure he feels safe with a baby in that room, not at all. Nathaniel is howling, excreting tears and snot and making a mess of Bruce’s button-down, but Bruce holds him close to his breast as he walks, feeling a protective instinct that he didn’t know he had blossoming. 

Clint has just left the bathroom when Bruce arrives at the end of the corridor, and takes Nathaniel from him. “Naptime’s over, huh?” he says, tilting his brows in apology. “There’s some wipes in the living room. For your shirt. Or you can use some kitchen roll. Put it in the wash when you get home.” 

“Thanks,” Bruce says, finding the kitchen roll. “Sorry. I hope I’m not overstepping, but I didn’t want to leave him.” 

“No, that was great, thanks. I don’t believe in just letting babies cry themselves out on their own. Seems cruel.” 

Neither of them really have the energy to make dinner, but Clint has some pizzas in the freezer for him and Bruce and he takes care of Nathaniel’s on his own. It’s probably the first dinner Bruce has had in a long time with someone that isn’t with Tony, and it’s nice: even though this isn’t his home, it feels homely, and though Clint has been through something just as hard as Bruce if not more, he doesn’t hesitate to help Bruce and keep him grounded. Bruce quickly forgets what he’d seen and heard earlier; he only remembers it when he finally arrives back in the quiet of his own apartment.

That figure… He’s so sure that it wasn’t a figment of his imagination, and yet it can’t have been anything else. 

He fetches his laptop from his desk and opens it up. He’s never believed in ghosts, and pretty sure he isn’t about to start now, but a little bit of Googling never hurt anyone. 

  
  


He doesn’t get a lot of sleep that night, and neither does Clint, apparently: they meet at a chain restaurant in town the next day, and Clint spends most of that time dozing. Bruce rather shamefully steals some of his food when he’s asleep, on account of the fact that he didn’t eat breakfast. He turns to Nathaniel and presses his finger to his lips; though Nathaniel is too young to understand, he  _ does _ react to Bruce looking at him, so it’s something. 

“Did he wake up last night?” Bruce asks when Clint is awake next. “Or did you just… not sleep?” 

“Bit of both,” Clint sighs. “I find it really hard to sleep now.” 

“Yeah,” Bruce says. “I get that.” 

“I think I’m going crazy.” 

“Hey. Hey, you’re not-” 

“God, Bruce, you don’t even understand. I don’t know if it’s that I’m tired, or if it’s because I’m so fucking depressed, but I’ve been seeing and hearing things. I don’t believe in ghosts, don’t even find horror movies scary, but fuck, Bruce, when you think you’re seeing someone standing over your child’s cot? Jesus. And I want to sleep, but I can’t sleep because when I close my eyes I see my family, or I see -  _ that _ . And then I don’t sleep, and not sleeping makes it worse, and I can’t deal with him when I haven’t slept, and… fuck.” He groans, rubbing his forehead. “I’m going crazy. I’m fucking seeing ghosts.” 

“Have you seen a psychiatrist about this, Clint?” 

“No. No, I haven’t, I don’t have the time.” 

“Clint.” 

“Don’t. Please. I’m just tired.” 

“Okay,” Bruce says, and before he realises what he’s done, he reaches across under the table and takes Clint’s hand. It’s a little clammy, and greasy with food, but Bruce doesn’t mind. “Sorry. It’s fine. Thanks for telling me. I mean, if you need it, I’m more than happy to help you, you know.” 

“Yeah, I know,” Clint says with a lazy grin. “I’m glad it was you I got to talk to. I always figured that since you weren’t saying anything, and  _ I _ wasn’t saying anything, that we’d get along, and boy, I was right.” 

Bruce laughs. He’d kind of asked Clint out for coffee for that same reason, that same assumption that they’d get along; and he was right, and he’s so happy that he was right. “I’m glad about that.”

  
  


He visits again after the next group meeting, and the next, and in between those too, and the fourth time that he visits Clint’s house he sleeps over. There’s a sofabed and the beds in the other rooms, but Bruce sleeps in Clint’s bed, and when Clint comes back to bed after checking on Nathaniel, Bruce sleepily reaches an arm around him and Clint says the next morning that that’s the best sleep he’s had in months. Better even than nights where Nathaniel had slept through. 

Bruce sees things when he stays over, every now and then; he hears them, at first, whispers and voices that he writes off as auditory hallucinations and hypnagogia, and then he sees figures again. In the living room corner, in Nathaniel’s room, at the end of his and Clint’s bed; it’s not lack of sleep, sure, but maybe he’s priming himself to expect this. He’s been reading the Skeptical Enquirer and online skeptics’ websites for weeks and reassuring himself with them. 

A month after he first spoke to Clint, Bruce moves in. 

It’s temporary: his apartment is still there, but Clint needs the extra pair of hands and Bruce is starting to feel more and more functional the more he helps out. Clint is good with his attacks, too: he knows how to calm Bruce down, to keep him distracted. 

Bruce still sees things. _Clint_ still sees things. Bruce freaks out in their bed, once, and is so scared that he feels his chest seize up in panic and it takes hours for that sensation to subside, for him to feel as if he isn’t suffocating. Clint stays with him the whole time, awake, his hands on Bruce, comforting. 

For everything he does, Bruce’s panic gets worse. 

The flashbacks of the accident keep coming, and hard, and he’ll have just finished the dishes when Clint will find him crouched in the kitchen with his hands over his eyes, and Clint will touch his wrists lightly and tell him that it’s okay, and when he takes Bruce’s hands away, Bruce will see that figure behind him and feel his throat tighten. 

It’s when Clint is calming Bruce down after a small panic attack that it happens: they’re in the midst of laughing at something he said, and a warmth is blossoming in Bruce’s chest that’ll soon bloom to replace the feeling of inexplicable fear, and Clint is holding Bruce’s hands and suddenly he’s kissing him, mouth so soft and tender that Bruce could just cry. God, Clint is so  _ gentle _ ; even as he breaks away, his eyes widen, and in a soft whisper he says, “shit, were you still panicking?”

Bruce replies first with a breathless laugh, and then finds the words to say “maybe a little”, and then, a little more desperately, “but please don’t stop”. 

Clint looks at him steadily for a few moments, and then nods, kissing him again. He lets them kiss for a while before his hands move to hover over Bruce’s jeans; and when Bruce doesn’t say or indicate to stop, unbuckles them. Bruce’s breathing has stopped having any sort of pattern, full of little hitches and gasps, and he seems to stop entirely when Clint kisses his hip. 

“You okay?” Clint asks. Bruce nods. “You wanna say that out loud for me, so I know you’re still breathing?” 

“Yeah, I’m okay,” Bruce nods. “It’s – it’s okay. Keep going.” Sweat is beginning to bead his forehead. He doesn’t know if it’s from the panic, or the sensation of Clint between his legs, or both. Probably both. 

Clint takes his  _ fucking time _ , but Bruce hasn’t had anyone touch him like that in so long that he still finishes fast, and he collapses back against the sofa, letting himself focus on breathing in counts of four before the anxiety decides he’s dying again, because now would definitely be a bad time for that. Clint seems to notice that he’s counting, and kisses Bruce’s forehead, instead, brushing a hand through his hair. 

“I was totally flirting with you,” he says. 

“I know,” Bruce replies. 

“Let me go get you something to clean you up.” 

“Thanks.” 

Clint disappears off to the bathroom, and Bruce sits in the haze; it’s been a  _ long _ time, and it’s more than nice to be appreciated and to be touched like this. He and Betty had – it hadn’t been great, before the accident, and then she had been dead and he would sit in his apartment and stare at the walls and wonder if she had died thinking that he was a bad person and if he could deal with that. Did she think it was his fault? Did she have enough time before she died to know it was her fault? Bruce still sees her face in strangers sometimes, and she always looks scornful because there had been an entire life before her where she could’ve thrived but  _ he _ held her back and then ultimately he had killed her and now she would never see that life. 

His fingers claw the sofa. 

Standing in the doorway to the kitchen is the figure, always too dark to really make out but just  _ looming _ , staring at Bruce as if it too knows that he’s guilty. 

He can’t tear his eyes from it or even shut them to blink. 

Clint’s arrival breaks the spell; Bruce finally blinks as he hears Clint’s footsteps along the corridor, and when his eyes open again the figure is gone and he’s just sitting on the sofa, a mess, tears spilling down his cheeks for reasons that he can’t articulate to Clint in any other way than to assure him that it isn’t his fault. 

“Hey,” Clint says, wiping Bruce’s tears away. “Hey. It’s okay. I’ve got you.” He crouches so that they’re at eye level, and Bruce leans forward to touch their foreheads together. “Did you see  _ it _ ?” Clint whispers. Bruce nods. 

“I keep seeing it,” he says. “All the time. I want to think that it isn’t real but I don’t even know how to keep explaining it away.”

Clint nods. “I know,” he says. “I know.” 

  
  


The next morning starts in a blur: Bruce has to drive Clint and Nathaniel to the hospital in Clint’s merciless four by four, and he spends hours in the waiting room to find out that they both have jaundice (Bruce already knew: he had pointed out the yellowing of Nathaniel’s skin to Clint) and that they’re both fine and that there’s nothing serious. On the drive home, he pulls through for some McDonald’s, and they sit eating in the parking lot. 

“Bruce,” Clint says from the back seat; Bruce swivels to face him. “About yesterday – I’m not ready for us to be serious. It’s still too soon for me. I shouldn’t have done that.”

Bruce isn’t going to pretend that he  _ isn’t _ slightly crushed by that news, but if Clint isn’t ready, then he isn’t ready, and Bruce in no way wants to push him into anything. He nods. “That’s okay,” he says. “Listen, Clint, I think I’m going to go back to my apartment for a couple days and see if I can figure out what to do about what’s going on. I already checked all the carbon monoxide detectors and they’re all working fine, so… I need more time to think. But you can call me if you need me, okay?” 

“Alright,” Clint says, and then he grins. “And don’t freak out if you get jaundice.” 

“I’ll try,” Bruce laughs. 

“And take this Happy Meal toy, for good luck.”

“What even  _ is _ that?”

“I dunno. Just have some damn faith in it, Bruce.” 

  
  


On his second day back in the mess that is Bruce’s apartment, Tony arrives. Usually, he gives Bruce some kind of advance warning that he’s coming round; but this time, he knocks, and when Bruce opens the door he says “were you planning on ever answering my calls?”

“I’m sorry,” Bruce sighs. “I’ve just been busy.”

“Busy? You?”

“Yeah, I was staying with a friend.” 

“Is that a friend or a  _ fun _ friend?” Tony asks, and Bruce rolls his eyes, moving aside to let him in. The apartment isn’t in the best state, having been left mostly vacant for the better part of two months, and Tony runs a finger along the dusty top of a bookcase. “Yikes.” 

“He goes to the grief support group,” Bruce says. “He’s a single dad. I just want to try and help him out.”

“Cute,” says Tony, and then he spies Bruce’s desk: it’s the only part of the room that’s sans dust, because Bruce has been building a spirit box on top of it. Not the traditional kind: Bruce thinks those are bollocks. But he’s been playing around with scanning different frequencies, and he thinks that maybe,  _ just _ maybe it might work. Beside it are a series of other ghost hunting tools, most of which Bruce has been modifying to fit his more scientific viewpoint. “Jesus Christ, Bruce, what’s this about? You trying to become a Ghostbuster? Cause let me disappoint you: ghosts aren’t real.” 

“That’s what I thought,” Bruce says, “but either I’ve been wrong my whole life about that, or for the past few months, my friend and I have had folie à deux.” 

Tony looks at him for a moment, and shakes his head. “Fine. Well, at least let me get in on this ghost equipment action before you go séancing around his house.” 

“Feel free. Should I order pizza?”

“Yeah. Get two large.” 

  
  
  


Bruce decides to go and pick them up instead of having them delivered; the shop is about two blocks away from his house, and the people behind the counter recognise him, even though he isn’t actually in there all that often. He’s just been living here for so long. 

It’s the middle of the afternoon, and the sun is high in the sky, a beam through an expanse of blue. The street is warm, and Bruce suddenly feels a stab of longing, wishing that he was with Clint and Nathaniel at some park somewhere or walking over and over round the same block until Nathaniel finally falls asleep. 

He takes the elevator back up to his apartment, where Tony is in the middle of taking apart his modified EMF reader. “This,” he says, gesturing to Bruce’s spirit box, “is beautiful, by the way. Top quality work. If I was ever going to put a bet on anything capturing a ghost voice, it’d be this.”

“Thanks,” Bruce says. “I didn’t really sleep last night. So…” 

“You worked on this instead. I can tell. Insomniac genius.” 

“What are you doing?” 

“Adjusting this so that basically nothing will set it off. I know you started, but honestly, those parameters are a little weak.” Tony pauses, and then points at Bruce with the reckoning of an epiphany. “Mass hysteria.” 

“I said that already. Folie à deux. Shared psychotic disorder. There’s only two of us. I mean, maybe they’re not the same thing, but I’m not that kind of doctor.” 

“I don’t know anything about those weird French problems. But if you think about it, when it comes to mass hysteria, a lot of it took place over months, right? The freaky clown thing from the other year, the Hollinwell thing, Mount Pleasant, the Witch Trials, the damn dancing plague. Are you guys having shared  _ delusions _ , or shared  _ hallucinations _ ? Cause I think it’s mass hysteria.” 

“I guess it might be.” Bruce trails off, and looks away. “It just feels so real.” He starts to feel his stomach drop, and he sits down on the sofa, burying his head in his hands. “I don’t wanna be crazy. Please don’t let me be crazy, Tony.”

“Hey,  _ hey _ , nobody said anything about crazy. These things can just  _ happen _ , you know? I don’t think anybody signed up to dance until they dropped. And maybe you’re right: maybe we’re both wrong and ghosts  _ are _ real. But we’re gonna find out.” 

“I should’ve died that day,” Bruce says, and he feels all the air leave the room. 

“Don’t you dare,” says Tony. Bruce hears him get up and approach; his energy is completely different to Clint’s, spikier, louder, more palpable. Clint’s energy is calm, controlled, even when he’s laughing. “If you’d died, then you wouldn’t be around to look after this friend of yours, right?” 

“Right.”

“And you wouldn’t get to eat this delicious pizza.” 

“Tony.” 

“Just fucking listen to me, Bruce, because if you think for a minute that I don’t see you with that gun in your hand every night before I go to sleep then you’re  _ very _ mistaken. Don’t you dare say anything like that again. If you  _ really _ want help, I can probably fast-track you into a psych ward, but if you don’t, then just fucking stick with me here, Bruce.” 

Bruce lets out a long, slow sigh. He feels like some of his emotions dribble out with the carbon dioxide. 

“I’m sorry, Tony.” 

“Yeah. Well, just don’t say anything like that again for both our sakes. And have some pizza.” Bruce can hear Tony move away, and he lets himself lower his shaking hands just in time for Tony to push the spirit box into them. “Wanna try and see if you’ve got any ghosts in here?” 

“Sure,” Bruce says, desperate to change the mood of the room. “Cover your ears.” 

Tony moves his mouth to ask why when Bruce switches the box on and lets loose the roar of pulsing static; Tony pulls a face, covering his ears, while Bruce demands to know if there are any ghosts in the room. The box makes a few noises, but nothing that sounds even close to a word. Bruce feels a little spark of joy at the thought that his modifications might’ve worked; he’d intended to keep the box from picking up too much interference and local stations, and considering how quiet it is compared to in the TV shows he’s had on in the background while he’s been working, he’s done his job correctly. 

He switches it off. “No ghosts in here,” he says with a small smile. 

“That’s good news.” Tony pauses, swivelling round on Bruce’s chair. “Do you know you’re yellow?”

Bruce groans. “Shit.”

  
  


When Tony leaves, he tells Bruce to  _ fucking call  _ if he needs him, all work be damned; Tony would drop anything in a heartbeat to make sure that Bruce was alright, and he knows that. Bruce makes it a point for himself to not have to call. If he doesn’t have to call, then he’s okay. He spends the next few days finishing up his adjustments to his ghost hunting kit, and reading into cases of mass hysteria, and waiting for the illness to pass. It’s not uncommon in babies to become jaundiced - one Nathaniel’s age, maybe it’s not the  _ most _ common, but Bruce isn’t totally surprised either. 

He spends a day eating leftovers from the pizza, and the next he drops by the bodega on the corner and gets himself some proper food. By the time he’s well and has finished with his work, there’s a part of him that’s starting to feel like a person again. 

It’d just help if he had the strength to clean his own apartment, too. 

He meets Clint for coffee the next day. Clint definitely hasn’t slept, but it doesn’t seem that Nathaniel has, either. 

“Bad night?” Bruce asks as Clint orders an extra shot in his coffee. 

“Tell me about it,” Clint says in something that’s between a laugh and a sigh. “I’m going to punch the next person who tells me their baby sleeps through the night. Bastards are just showing off their normal sleep schedules. How have you been?” 

“I’ve been worse,” Bruce says. “I even went to the bodega.” 

Clint whistles. “Wow. Look at Mr Responsible over here.” 

“How have you been holding up?” 

“Same as usual, but with a little less sleep. He hasn’t been well. He’s had a stomach bug. If I throw up tonight, you know where I got it.” Clint takes their usual seat by the window; Nathaniel is dozing in his stroller, and Clint doesn’t bother to wake him up. “What have you been up to? Watching  _ Ghost Adventures _ reruns?” 

“Think I’ve seen just about every ghost show there is,” Bruce says good-naturedly. “Yeah, I made a ghost-hunting kit, and then my friend suggested that maybe this is all just mass hysteria, so if we don’t find a ghost, I think I might get a psychiatrist. I don’t want to think I’m crazy, but… who knows anymore?” 

“You’re not  _ crazy _ ,” Clint says. “None of us are crazy. I know I said that word first, but we’re  _ not _ .” 

“Just so sad that we’re seeing things?” 

Clint shrugs. “Sure.” 

Bruce goes home with Clint and they don’t talk anymore about whether any of this is  _ real _ ; this is mostly because Clint hits the toilet bowl less than a minute after they get through the door. Bruce leaves him for a while, and takes Nathaniel in the car to the nearest drugstore to grab some over-the-counter antidiarrheal and anti-nausea medication as well as an electrolyte solution and some ginger tea. On second thought, he also buys some antibacterial wipes and scrubs down a good portion of Clint’s house when he gets home before he sets about to making dinner.

“You don’t have to do this,” Clint says, but Bruce takes one look at his glistening forehead and raises his eyebrows. 

“As long as you look after me when I inevitably get this,” he says. 

“Sure, but I’m not going to know what drugs to get.” 

“I can write you a list.”

Bruce fixes Clint up with some white rice, and after Clint has put Nathaniel to rest, decides to talk him through all of the ghost hunting equipment. “We can’t use the spirit box now,” he says, “because it’s too loud, but we could try some of the other things, if you want. I’ve been working on some modifications.” 

Clint grins. “Now normally, I would’ve said no,” he says, “but I’m intrigued.” 

“Me too,” Bruce laughs. “After watching all these shows…” 

“I’m going to be really disappointed if we don’t find anything.” 

“Technically, we’ve already seen them, which is more than any of these shows.” 

For the most part, Clint remains sofa-bound with a glass of cold water, and Bruce doesn’t know if he’s listening, but walks Clint through everything anyway: the EMF reader, designed to measure electromagnetic fields and so jacked-up that it only detects large spikes well beyond even the highest ambient readings; temperature sensors measured to detect extremes; a Geiger counter; some infrasound monitoring equipment; and motion sensors. 

“This ain’t like Ghostbusters,” Clint snorts, then his face changes. “Shit. Bathroom.” 

That’s all he manages before he makes the dash, and Bruce isn’t even sure Clint makes it to the toilet before he hears Clint throw up. He ventures up, just in case, but it’s fine: Clint is fast, and Nathaniel is awake, and Clint’s forehead is slick with perspiration. 

“You need to sleep,” Bruce says softly. 

“After I put him to bed.” Clint runs a hand through his hair; it looks like he’s just showered. “Tell me if there’s any ghosts.” 

“I will,” says Bruce. “I’m going to sleep on the couch. Hope that’s okay.”

“Sure. Night, Bruce.” 

“Night, Clint.” 

He spends a good deal of the evening wandering around the ground floor of the farmstead with his equipment: but nothing goes off, or is triggered, and he doesn’t even get readings on most of his detectors. He texts Tony about it, and then pulls the blanket from the back of the sofa and arranges it over himself. It’s not going to be the most comfortable night’s sleep, but he’s sure he’s had worse. He falls asleep easily once he finds a good position, and sleeps with no dreams: he wakes up with a start sometime in the early hours, and realises with a jolt that there’s a figure standing in the doorway. 

Bruce has  _ not _ missed it, and hasn’t missed the cloying fear that seems to freeze his veins and choke his throat. 

Slowly, he pushes the blanket away and stands up. The figure remains, constant and unmoving, a shadow; ignoring the hairs stood to attention on the back of his neck, Bruce listens to the adrenalin beginning to course through his system and begins to take small steps across the floor. Steadily, he keeps walking, waiting for the figure to pull its usual vanishing act and for him to feel stupid for freaking out: but determinedly he walks, step after step because he  _ needs _ to know now, and after what feels like an eternity, he arrives close enough to the figure that he can make out features under the cloak of shadow it seems to exist in. It has a distinctive face, a particular one, and… 

Bruce realises he’s looking at Clint’s face. Not Clint, no – it’s not him, because he’s upstairs and asleep and looks like shit and definitely isn’t shrouded in darkness and appearing and disappearing like a magician. This Clint looks empty. 

“Clint,” Bruce whispers, his brows knitting together. There’s no response, and so with a slight tremor he lifts his hand to touch this impostor; but when his hand reaches the false Clint’s cheek it simply cuts through nothingness and Bruce is alone in an empty doorway. The house is silent. 

For reasons he doesn’t understand, he cries softly for a while before he stumbles back to the sofa and falls asleep again. 

  
  


Clint sleeps in; Bruce lets him have this one, and takes Nathaniel downstairs for breakfast, trying to deal with the baby as best he can on his own. Nathaniel is surprisingly cooperative, likely tired from his own round with the stomach bug: he eats a little, turning down a full portion of food, and drinks some milk as well as water. “Good boy,” Bruce says. “Stay hydrated.” 

“Bwah,” says Nathaniel. 

“That’s right,” Bruce comments, taking Nathaniel’s half-empty cereal bowl through to the kitchen. When he comes back through, he realises that Clint has arrived; he still looks pale and distinctly unwell, but he’s washed his face and doesn’t look so disgustingly sweaty. Bruce checks his temperature anyway. It’s elevated. 

“Hope that isn’t a butt thermometer,” Clint chuckles. 

Bruce cracks a smile at that joke, his mind still on the Clint from the night before; but then Nathaniel knocks his milk over, and the thought disperses. 

  
  


It’s a few days until either of them address the ghosts again; Clint is on the mend, and hopefully now non-contagious (Bruce keeps things wiped down anyway), and Bruce has been running the house as best he can. He’s barely had time to worry about anything other than Nathaniel, and Clint, and sleep, in that order. He keeps in touch with Tony, too, messaging him every day because Tony won’t say it but Bruce knows he’s concerned enough to want that. He tells Tony Clint’s name, and Tony messages back  _ boyfriend? if you have a threesome, do it with someone whose name begins with an a so you can be a b c _ . Bruce rolls his eyes. He tells Tony in polite language to piss off. 

It’s during dinner that Clint asks about the ghosts again, and Bruce tells him the whole story after they’ve put Nathaniel to bed. 

“The figure,” Bruce says. “It was you.” 

Clint nods, and when he speaks, it’s slowly, more reflective than he usually is. His words come with a gentle care. “Sometimes I think you can get so sad it becomes real.” He sighs, and rubs his face. “I lost my wife, Laura, and two of my kids, and I want to know, when does it end? I keep feeling as if they’re just gonna walk through that door any minute now. I don’t feel like I’m going crazy anymore, but I wonder when these feelings are ever gonna stop or if it’s always gonna be like this. This sad, I mean. So sad I feel like I could create a whole person just out of it. And when does it become okay for my life to go back to normal? I feel like the world stopped but I don’t know where to get back on. When will it be okay to do all the things I don’t feel like I can do now? When am I going to stop feeling like I’m betraying Laura by being alive?” 

He doesn’t cry when he speaks, not once: he just lets the room fill with silence when he stops, and looks out the window, and Bruce lets himself listen and think and feel. He knows that feeling of guilt for still living all too well. He knows how hard this is, how impossible it feels to navigate. 

And he doesn’t know how it works, either.

Clint clears his throat. “Are you gonna stay?” he asks. 

“Yeah,” Bruce says, taking his hand. “Yeah, I’m gonna stay.”

  
  


He sleeps in Clint’s bed that night; if he’s going to get the stomach flu, he’s probably going to get it no matter what he does, so he washes the sheets during the day and crawls in at night, half-consciously wrapping an arm around Clint’s midsection. 

“Clint,” Bruce murmurs. 

“Yeah?”

“When I first met you, you said you wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for the baby.”

“Yeah.”

“I wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for you.”

Bruce can both hear and feel Clint’s sharp intake of breath; then Clint turns so that they’re facing each other, and even though Bruce can barely see him in the dark of the bedroom, he registers the softness in Clint’s eyes, the ease to his smile. “You’re an idiot,” Clint says softly, reaching up to touch Bruce’s cheek. “I hope you know that.” 

Bruce just grins. 

He doesn’t see the figure that night. 

Or the night after, or the one after that; the days just keep passing without incident for either him or Clint, and Bruce can’t place  _ why _ , but – he hopes he’s been able to be a light in the dark. 

  
  


“Okay,” Tony says over the phone, “you know Carl Jung?”

“Not personally,” Bruce mutters, and can practically  _ hear  _ the indignation in Tony’s voice when it returns to the line. He holds in a laugh. 

“I’m sorry, are you smartassing me? That’s  _ my  _ job in this friendship, actually, Bruce. There’s no room for two smartasses in one duo. That’d just be ridiculous. Anyway, do you know Carl Jung?”

“I know that he was a famous psychoanalyst and that he disagreed with Freud. Then again, who  _ wouldn’t _ ?”

“Freudians and Oedipus,” Tony retorts. “Anyway, Carl Jung actually weighed in on poltergeists. He thinks that some poltergeist phenomena is actually caused by externalisation of the subconscious mind – so if your boyfriend is from the grief group, then he might be exteriorising his trauma. Or maybe it’s you.”

Bruce doesn’t bother correcting  _ boyfriend  _ to  _ friend _ ; considering that he sleeps in Clint’s bed, the lines of their relationship are blurred. Bruce just knows that it’s up to Clint to decide whether they pursue anything romantic anytime soon; he knows that Clint has lost a family, and he doesn’t want to step on that. “So you’re saying that Clint is haunting himself?”

“You said the figure looked like him, right? Then sure. I mean, he’s no poltergeist, but if you’re fishing in the pool of non mass hysteria explanations, that’s the best one.” 

“Yeah, it kinda makes sense, even if it makes no  _ scientific  _ sense,” Bruce says. He’s standing outside the farmstead, in the grass, watching the orange light of the sunset; he’ll have to hang up soon and go inside because he said he’d cook dinner tonight, but for right now he’s enjoying the view and the comforting summer heat. “Thanks, Tony. I owe you.”

“Nah, you don’t. Just found it on the Wikipedia page for poltergeists.” Tony pauses. “So, this Clint guy… He’s looking after you?”

“We’re kinda looking after each other.”

“Sure, sure. I mean, I’d warn you not to jump into anything too fast after what happened, but… this guy makes you happy, right?”

Bruce realises with a start that Tony is right. 

Clint really does make him feel  _ happy  _ again, as if things are surmountable again, as if there’s a future in the horizon where he isn’t going to wake up thinking he’s on fire. Sometimes Bruce lets his mind wander and imagines taking Nathaniel to kindergarten on his first day, and then to school, and every time he thinks about that he sees himself happy –  _ really  _ happy. He bites his bottom lip to try and stop the tears that he feels flooding his eyes. 

They’re good tears, though. They’re the tears of Bruce realising that things are going to be okay. Maybe not now, or next week, or next year: but that it’s going to be okay again. Life is going on and in those moments where he’s living it he doesn’t feel guilty anymore. 

“Yeah,” Bruce whispers. “He does.”

“Good. You deserve that. I’ll skip giving him the old  _ if you hurt Bruce I will hunt you down _ .”

Bruce chuckles. “I don’t know, I think he’d like hearing that talk.”

“Well, we can arrange a time for some threatening over pizza. I gotta go because Happy’s gonna kill me if he finds out I’m not working, and I  _ fully _ believe he’s gonna kill me this time. Stay sane, buddy.”

“You too, Tony.”

Bruce hangs up, and watches the horizon for a little bit longer: he listens to the birds, the sound of music from the farm and the noises of Clint and Nathaniel playing. This may not have been the life he’d ever have envisioned himself having, but it’s a life that he has so luckily been given, and, well… 

Sometimes, he thinks, beauty comes from tragedy. In dried-up lands, between the cracks of dead earth, defying the desolation, plant life grows. 


End file.
